


Viewfinder

by likeabomb



Series: HQTransWeek2021 [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Memories, Fluff, M/M, No Deadnames, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29125884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeabomb/pseuds/likeabomb
Summary: While digging for something in the closet, Tanaka stumbles on a box full of dusty photo albums.
Relationships: Nishinoya Yuu/Tanaka Ryuunosuke
Series: HQTransWeek2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137155
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43
Collections: HQ!! Trans Week 2021





	Viewfinder

**Author's Note:**

> Written for #hqtransweek on Twitter and Tumblr!  
> Crossposted to my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/likeabomb_), come say hi!
> 
> Day 1: Photos

“You took all these?”

Noya looks up to see Tanaka sitting cross legged on the floor by the closet. One of the boxes is pulled half out, the lid slid off, and a big binder is open in his lap. Crawling over, he leans heavily on Tanaka, jostling him just enough to get a reflexive smile.

“Not all of ‘em, just the way later ones.”

While digging through the closet for something, Tanaka had stumbled on a photo album tucked away in a box, packed full of memories. The pages are crisp, and the photos behind slick plastic are bright glimpses at the life Nishinoya has led. Blinking at his love next to him, and back down to a page chronicling Noya’s childhood, Tanaka huffs a soft punched out sound.

“I always knew you liked photography, but I didn’t know about all this.”

Tanaka’s fingers trace over the edges of pages, turning all the way back to the beginning of the book to really take it in. The weight of it resting open on his legs is uncanny. It’s Noya’s life.

At the beginning of the photo album, a lot of pictures of Nishinoya are from when he was young. From just a baby swaddled in a blanket and on. One with a paper hat and a stick, and far too many with all three of his older sisters. Some are them holding him on their hip or shoulders, or swinging him between them. Some are just them, casual and soft.

The person he sees in the picture is a different Nishinoya, though, one Tanaka never met, but knows existed at one point. Still does, in the ways that are allowed. 

Though he knows they’re all Noya from the natural streak of blonde in his hair, no matter the length.

“You-” Tanaka barks a laugh, pointing at one, “You never told me you did the same thing I did!”

“Wha-” Noya leans against him more to look, grinning wildly, “It worked, didn’t it?”

The picture in question is Nishinoya looking a little too pleased with himself while one of his sisters cuts gum out of his hair. The look on his face says he did it on purpose, and Tanaka remembers doing the same thing more than once. Saeko would never get mad, but their grandmother would, and Tanaka thinks idly about how he’s fairly sure she didn’t understand what it all meant, even up until her passing a few summers back.

Seeing Nishinoya when he was this young is a weird thing, and Tanaka’s chest aches to know that even if this binder was packed away, a project of another time, that Nishinoya trusts him enough with it not to be upset he’s looking at something so deeply personal.

“Aw come on, don’t go crying all over it,” Noya chides gently, looping a hand around Tanaka’s waist to press his cheek against his shoulder and settle in to look at all the photos with him.

“It just- it’s a lot, y’know,” Tanaka clears his throat. He definitely wasn’t tearing up or anything.

“I know,” he mutters the word into the fabric of Tanaka’s sleeve, but they feel like they weigh just as much as the book in his lap.

This time capsule continues, though, and over the years of pictures through elementary and middle school, there’s a gradual but relieving path to follow where Noya started to come into himself. Tanaka has met Noya’s sisters, obviously, but seeing it laid out so plainly that they had been supportive of their little brother leaves him breathless with joy to know that he’d had this kind of happiness in his life.

One picture in particular makes him stop and laugh, delighted with the light that comes from the smile Noya wears. Hanging from the branches of the plum tree in the back garden of his family home wearing a black binder and shorts, one sandal on, the other lost in his enthusiasm.

“That summer was so hot,” Noya groans.

“What year was that?” Tanaka tries to recall his own childhood years.

“I was like- eleven, I think? So-”

“I remember that summer! Saeko-” Tanaka cuts himself off with a laugh remembering, “Saeko said she was gonna make us a sprinkler, and she just went out and put a bunch of holes in the hose with a kitchen knife.”

Busting up laughing with him about it, Noya grins, “Neechan!! Yeah, that sounds like her. Did it work?”

“No, it just ruined the hose! Jiji was  _ so  _ mad.”

He smiles at Nishinoya’s wide grin at the first time he was wearing the Karasuno High uniform. It always did look good on him, the sleek black with all the shiny gold buttons.

“You really went all in with that blazer, dude,” Tanaka snickers.

Noya laughs, gesturing, “It was a damn good look, man, can you blame me?”

“Oh, I feel you! Me too!”

That’s the last picture of the binder, and Tanaka closes it carefully, listening to the crisp crunch of the spine. He runs a hand down it and lifts his eyes to meet Noya’s next to him. They’re filled with the same light and love of life that all of his smiles are. Everything he does every day of his life is filled with so much enthusiasm for the joy of the moment, and hope for what’s coming in the next hour, the next month, the next twenty years.

Leaning in, they fall into an easy and gentle headbutt that makes both of them laugh. Tanaka’s hand on the back of Nishinoya’s neck guides them into a kiss, familiar and warm.

Noya breaks it with a gasp, eyebrows high as he leans on Tanaka suddenly, reaching for the box, “Wait! Hold on-”

When he pulls out another book, Tanaka is still reeling from the kiss and the abruptness of Noya’s train of thought jumping tracks.

“How many of these do you  _ have _ ?” he stares in disbelief.

“Pictures or binders?” Noya asks, straight laced, pulling the box a little more to show Tanaka the entire box is full of these picture albums.

When he cracks open the first one and turns a few pages to show him a picture, everything becomes a wild flurry of nostalgia.

There’s a candid shot of Tanaka making goo goo eyes at Kiyoko while she’s talking with Daichi, and the label underneath says, “A man of good taste! :)” and Tanaka can’t help the rising heat in his face that he covers with a hand.

“I can’t believe you’ve got all these!”

“Of course I do!” Noya turns back to the beginning to show this book from the beginning, and this time, the binder is settled in his lap, and Tanaka leans on him to look over his shoulder.

Asahi before his hair was long enough to braid is a sight, and Sugawara when he was taller than Daichi floors Tanaka- he doesn’t remember that at all, but there it is, clear as day.

“You know how much we got up to?” Noya prompts, “There’s a ton of formal pictures of the team in another book, and another one with like, you know, days out to lunch or the koi pond by Aoki Market.”

“How did you  _ get _ all these? I don’t remember most of these at all.” He stares in wonderment at the pictures, reaching to turn another page.

“That was the point,” Noya hums, leaning back against Tanaka a little. “I wanted to keep all those memories, but the point was that they were- it wasn’t  _ staged _ . Nobody’s stiff and waiting.”

“Like we’re still right there,” Tanaka offers, and Noya nods against him.

“Yeah, exactly.”

There’s pictures of Noya’s healing through his top surgery, and how he managed to look even more like a ray of light made human  _ floors _ Tanaka. There’s a few instances of Tanaka having taken a picture of Noya with his camera, one head on where he’s smiling looking through it, and it’s opposite of Tanaka with his phone with the same cheeky grin, and another of Nishinoya concentrating on taking a landscape shot, and Tanaka had been taken with the passion in his eyes. There’s a couple of the two of them with their shirts off, either wrestling, or at the beach- there’s a particularly unflattering picture of him with a huge drool spot on the pillow, limbs and blanket a tangled mess, but it just makes him laugh more and appreciate just how much of their life Nishinoya had been able to keep like this.

“You’re a sap, you know that,” he hums, pressing a kiss to his hair. There’s no gel in it, and he can smell the tsubaki flower shampoo he uses, and that just makes him want to stay there forever.

“Yeah, man, have we met?” Noya laughs gently, and closes the fourth book in the pile before turning around and burying his face into Tanaka’s shoulder.

There’s so much the both of them have gotten the chance to share, and after a while a lot of the albums are their life together, and the things they’ve gotten up to. It’s a museum of the love they’ve found in life, and in each other, and as much as Tanaka might tease him gently for being sappy, it’s Tanaka that leaves little damp streaks in Noya’s locks when he collects him up into his lap.

A soft and breathy laugh reaches his ears and in the same way Tanaka teases, Noya teases back, “And you say  _ I’m  _ the sap, huh?”

Tanaka pouts a little but butts their heads together again, giving a weak and watery laugh.

“Well, if we’re both being sappy and everything- thanks.”

“Mm?” Noya hums, tilting his head to look him in the eyes, trying not to smile at his emotional husband.

“For sharing it with me,” he gestures to the photo albums, “And- our lives too.”

Even though he knew something like this was coming, because after being together for so long, they know each other so well, it still knocks the wind out of Noya and he tears up too. He smiles, though, and it makes Tanaka smile with him.

“Ryu, you big baby,” Noya groans, leaning in to butt his nose against the corner of Tanaka’s jaw, “Gonna share all of this, and everything else too.”

A teary sniffle but Tanaka leans into him more, squeezing him close, muttering gently, “Couldn’t ask for more, Yuu.”

Not everything they’ve seen and been through has been easy or smooth, as children, as awkward adolescents, as adults still learning each and every day how best to navigate their world. But they have each other, and they have an unshakable trust, and that’s more than enough for the both of them.


End file.
